Monday, October 31, 2011

Here's a video interview I did recently with Jochen Gutsch for the Goethe Institute in Sydney, at the iconic Gould's books in Newtown. Enjoy

if you are not seeing a playable video window above (click here) for a direct link to the YouTube video

The Goethe Institute is a an organisation operating worldwide as cultural ambassadors for Germany, promoting an exchange of ideas, and Jochen has been interviewing lots of artists around Sydney to this end, and adding clips to their YouTube channel on a regular basis. To check out some of their other videos click here for their YouTube channel.

Thanks to Jochen for taking the time to come out on a rainy afternoon and help me kill some time in Newtown, and for editing out parts of the interview where I started awkwardly trying to mount a high horse on a soap box on a slippery slope on a whim. Quite a stunt if one can pull it off, but it turns out some of just aren't that well-balanced.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Well no sooner than I got back home than I'm off again. However this new trip will be the first time in 2.5 years I'm leaving Melbourne without it expressly being to perform poetry. The next ten days will be spent in complete and utter silence undertaking Vipassana meditation, something I've long been curious about, but now after spending so much time plugged into everything and everyone over the last 3 months, I feel like I really need.

I'll be offline, off peak, off tap and off the grid for the next fortnight, trying to get comfortable in my own skin, without trying to get into anyone else' for a while.

Inevitably, it'll be an experience I'll end up writing about. Buddy Wakefield wrote his epic poem 'Human The Death Dance' in his head while doing the same course. I did a cover of this last night at Passionate Tongues in Brunswick, and figured it's a good way to leave off the blog for the next little while. Fittingly, the last thing you'll see is me telling cameraman Steve Smart that that's enough, and to shut the bloody thing off. Enjoy

To be honest I'm absolutely terrified by this challenge, but it's nice to be once again in that kind of place/space where one is undertaking something that seems beyond them. This is how I believe I can grow. Wish me luck.

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Before I leave Melbourne again I was hoping to do a write up letter thanking every individual who helped me on the 99 day tour I've just completed, but it's only four and a bit hours (mark) before I have to get up and get my arse to the airport again, so that will have to wait now until November. Dang.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

if you are not seeing a playable window above click here for a direct link to the YouTube video

Performed at the This is Not Art festival's anti-slam, on September 29th 2011. Camera by the redoubtable Alex Scott.

SOMETHING OF VALUE

If you are going to be lonely

find the biggest sky you can as far from home as possible to do it under

lift the weight off old skylines finding new light looking up lose old aching gravity overarching starful as the pinpricks wink youacross this impossible distance

where a couch can't contain you let that distance stretch you -out so much further than spread eagle across beds throw yourself into it scatter life down highways like you're a string of wreckage let hurt spur you on paving the lines on your face with a road map's direction and

own your alone

if lonely hunts you amongst people in places already known then run, sucker, run hide inside a pocket of velocity an envelope of anonymity a blanket of trajectoryjumping the void left by burnt bridges across the still waters running too deep for shallow swimmers to have followed youinsist that loneliness will work for its prey

if you are going to be lonely be strange stubborn as leg cramps let your skincarpet your flaws be so funnythat your punchlines ...can leave black eyes be so far gone that your trail will itself be a tale bread-crumbed to become the stuff nourishing a legend

if all your photos of youare taken arms length then reach further than you ever believed you could and picture yourself

beautiful

and in reaching around to sunscreen your own back develop another flexibility plans remain in your hands no splitting this difference where decisions comes from within that same sunscreen grease will suddenly smell like freedom and release

if caught in a conversational drought then find your minds own inner dialogue and talk yourself up a storm

get your years covered in mud get them buckled and blistered warped from water-log snow stained with sand grains stuck in them 'til you stink of a long-story's old nostalgia

if you are going to be lonely at all do it all out there where not a single friendly-fire word-exchange can steal your flame torch glowyour life's lightfar from home

and hold on to those nights' silence feel it congeal around you so thick and hard you can actually grab hold of it climb the silenceuse it as a boost-up to get over the wallsthat followed behind youinto every situation

look out on an horizonas it curves back too farin either direction for the straightand lame to ever catch you again

under the biggest sky you can find as far from home as possibleand up on that silent line even if standing thereall alone it remains

Monday, October 3, 2011

So it's about sweet-time I did some talking about this month's talkers:

TARIRO MAVONDO

Tariro first got a taste of the theatre performing in 2008, already studying Politics and Anthropology and working as an artist with international and nationally established bands at festivals such as the World Music Festival in Adelaide, Big Day out and the World Music Expo (Arts centre).Tariro has worked as an actor with the VCA Centre of Cultural Partnerships Horn of Africa program that toured a group devised piece to schools and community centres around Victoria in 2010.Also a founding member and workshop facilitator of Poetics and Justice, as well as a founding member of Still Waters African Women’s Storytelling Collective, an artist for the African Voices of Carlton Project. At the Australian Poetry Slam she was a state finalist in 2009, and again in 2010, going onto be a national finalist (see YouTube below).

Tariro performing at the National Slam Finals last year:

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

SANTO CAZZATI

The son of Italian immigrants to Australia, he's emerged as one of Australia's most unique spoken word artists from past lives as a classical concert pianist and avant garde jazz musician to teach at an elite Melbourne private school. He performs in a range of styles, from fast rhythmical delivery to slow atmospheric meditation, often with a strong world music influence and critical ironic distance. A fixture on Melbourne's grass roots poetry scene, his has featured at a long list of reading, events and festivals around Australia.

He is a presenter of 3CR's Spoken Word radio programme and appears on Going Down Swinging and Voiceprints CDs as well as the Melbourne Poetry Map website and television programme Red Lobster on Channel 31. He is a winner of the Overload Shelton Lea Award for Best Solo Performance.

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

JESSICA ALICE

Jessica Alice is a bitter and lusty poetess from old, grey Melbourne town. She performed her poetry for Voiceworks, as well as the Emerging Writers and Overload Poetry Festivals – making her debut at the Abottsford Convent in 2008 and winning The Spinning Room’s performers place in 2010. Jessica presents The Powder Room on Triple R’s Aural Text, and performs her confessional, tragic love poems wherever there is a bar and not necessarily a mic.

Jess performing at the Spinning Room, Melbourne (2009)

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

LUKA LESSON

Upon his arrival in Melbourne, Luka Lesson rapidly emerged as our ultimate slam champion. One of only two Australians to ever compete in the Individual World Slam Finals in the US. As co-director of the Centre of Poetics and Justice, Luka's passionate commitment to human rights and social justice in Australia has helped many marginalised young people find their own voice through the workshops he has conducted. Luka is both a powerful writer and performer who will have you in turns cheering and sighing with delight as his oratory.

Luka performing- May Your Pen Grace the Page (at the Nuyorican, New York)

If you're not seeing a playable video above then click here for a direct YouTube link

AND OMAR MUSA

We're delighted to have back Omar bin Musa, recently seen telling it like it is on ABC's Q and A, as the night's MC

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Okay, so now you know, why you must go to see this show. Sweetalkers is